welcome all to this important hearing and mr. zienz i do not envy your task today, you are new to the job and got thrown into the breech and you came late with respect to preparing this pudge and you have got a very tough job ahead of you. with the departure of jack lou, you got thrown in at the late moment. i want to tell you first bring get into this. thank you for serving our country. you came from a successful private sector career back to government and we applaud that. i think that these things go without saying but they are -- they bare repeating. problem is, you're in the position of defending a budget that dodges the most difficult challenges that our country faces. the new york times reported that this is more a budget that is a for the campaign. it's hard to disagree with this. the associated press quotes, takes a pass on reigning in government growth, instead it leaves the drivers of thei itde and entitlement programs largely unchecked and the programs threaten to end the guarantee of the security that they provide for the